Web Design & Development Blog

Why Your Direct Traffic Can Drop Suddenly

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You’re in the backend of your website, monitoring your web traffic, and you notice a precipitous drop, almost like the traffic fell off a cliff. Why does that happen? And what do you do? As a Charlotte web design company, we can tell you why and what to do about it.

Google Analytics 4 is Down

It’s rare but it does happen – Google can experience a partial outage. What happens is a sudden drop across all your channels. In that situation, check for recent code or tag manager changes that coincide with the drop (or ask your web developer to check for that). Also, debug your analytics setup using DebugView and real-time reports. Ask your friends if they’re experiencing issues too.

Usually though, unintentional changes in Google Tag Manager, duplicate or conflicting tracking codes, or browser parsing errors are to blame. As a Charlotte web developer, we can check for that.

Your Website is Down

If your web traffic drops it could also be that your own website is to blame. Maybe you made recent changes that caused the issue. Most analytics platforms report with a delay, which means the problem may already be solved. A real-time report would give you more accurate information.

It’s a Holiday

During holidays (and not only the winter ones), traffic can stop coming to your website. You can determine this by identifying that traffic has declined, but hasn’t hit zero. And it may also be that specific regions of the world show a sharper drop than others. For instance, during the Lunar New Year, your traffic in Asian countries may sink. What do you do about it? Nothing! The “problem” will be resolved shortly. Just take note of it so you don’t freak out next year when the holiday comes around again.

There’s a Tracking Issue

If you have an online store and notice a ton of traffic is being diverted to your checkout page, that could be a sign of a tracking issue, especially if you’re not running a big sale or something. Another hint for this is other key metrics, such as total conversions, are unaffected.

In this instance, audit your tracking code and check for unusual entrance/exit pages. Also consider extending the session timeout setting. If that sounds overly complicated, as a Charlotte web developer, we can help with that.

A drop in web traffic doesn’t need to be cause for alarm – it could be because Google is experiencing an outage, your website is down, it’s a holiday, or there’s a tracking issue. You don’t have to figure that out on your own though – your favorite Charlotte web developer (us) is available. Get in touch with us via email or call (704) 336-9113.

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